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Title: Reflectionless passage of an electromagnetic wave through an inhomogeneous plasma layer

Journal Article · · Plasma Physics Reports
;  [1]
  1. Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Space Research (Russian Federation)

An exactly solvable model is used as a basis to study the reflectionless passage of a transverse electromagnetic wave through an inhomogeneous plasma containing large-amplitude, small-scale (subwave-length) structures (in particular, opaque regions) that cannot be correctly described by approximate methods. It is shown that, during the reflectionless passage of an electromagnetic wave, strong wave field splashes can occur in certain plasma sublayers. The nonuniform spatial plasma density profile is characterized by a number of free parameters describing the modulation depth of the dielectric function, the characteristic sizes of the structures and their number, the thickness of the inhomogeneous plasma region, and so on. Such plasma density structures are shown to be very diverse when, e.g., a wave that is incident from vacuum propagates without reflection through a plasma layer (wave barrier transillumination). With the cubic nonlinearity taken into account, a one-dimensional problem of the nonlinear transillumination of an inhomogeneous plasma can be solved exactly.

OSTI ID:
22047505
Journal Information:
Plasma Physics Reports, Vol. 37, Issue 9; Other Information: Copyright (c) 2011 Pleiades Publishing, Ltd.; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1063-780X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English